The Death of Socrates. Romano Guardini

The Death of Socrates

the questions and statements; with the existence of the man who is here asking and affirming, and who is not just anyone, but Socrates; that Socrates who is the outcome of the contact between the stonemason of Alopece and his great disciple, combining in himself elements from the nature of both. This work, then, will not raise the question as to which parts of the four dialogues are historically Socratic or Platonic; the Socrates of which it speaks is that presiding genius of Plato’s dialogues who has continued to influence the philosophical life of the West.

The texts mentioned are taken as a unity. It is not thereby asserted that they were planned as a unity or even composed at the same period. If Plato’s work falls into four periods—youth, transition, maturity and old age—the Phaedo belongs to the time of mastery, while the other three dialogues are a product of the early years. With regard to the order in which the latter appeared, probably the Apology was written first, then the Crito, and last the Euthyphro. Our enquiry is concerned with the unity which results from the contents themselves. The Phaedo differs from the other dialogues in the thought as well as in the manner in which it draws the figure of Socrates; but the force of the event round which they are all grouped is so great that it prevails over the difference. And what is really the expression of Plato’s intellectual and artistic growth, succeeding ever better in drawing out the potentialities of the figure, appears here as that development and transformation which occurs in Socrates in the hours before death, “when men most are wont to prophesy”.

Finally, as regards the method of the enquiry: it follows the text as closely as possible, clarifying and connecting the conclusions by inserting shorter or longer recapitulations. In this way certain thoughts must keep recurring; but that is sufficiently compensated by the advantage that the theoretical considerations arise immediately from the text.

The purpose of this work is a philosophical interpretation, seeking to enter into Plato’s thought; not in order to state and retrace his ideas historically, but in order to approach, under their guidance, nearer to the truth itself. Such a method must aim primarily at bringing the text itself into the greatest possible prominence.

This book—so much at least may be said—is the fruit of a real contact with the figure of Socrates. I have kept returning to the texts in the effort to grasp the thought behind Socrates’s statements and the mode of existence implied by that thought. Perhaps the result does not give a ready clue to the amount of work behind it, especially as this is not indicated by the usual apparatus. This implies no depreciation of philological and historical research, for which on the contrary I have the highest respect. But it is not my line—any more than it was in earlier studies of a similar kind. The reader, then, must decide whether the view of Socrates’s character and message is true enough, and the presentation of this view clear enough, to justify the book.

The translation of the Dialogues is that made by F. J. Church for his Trial and Death of Socrates.

CONTENTS

The Movement of the Dialogue

The Problem and its Discussion

The First Series of Questions

The Question concerning Essence